Rose of Sharon

This is a colored pencil floral painting that I did a while ago. Right now, my garden is blooming, and the Rose of Sharon is getting ready to open. The beautiful and interesting thing about this plant, is that it can have several different colors of flowers on the same Rose of Sharon bush. Sometimes, white, pink and purple.

Colored pencil is an nice medium to use, layering like a watercolor to create blended colors. It's also great since it's so portable--just bring along your pad and pencils and you're ready to go!

The original is not for sale, but prints are available. See the link to FineArtAmerica on the right at the top of the page under "Links". The original painting is 9 1/4" x 8 1/4".

"Out of the Bag"

This is a playful piece, oil on canvas, done from a still life set-up. It's really showing the green/red palette juxtaposed to the neutral background setting. I've tried to make the green apple the "star" by keeping the red pear more of a backdrop for the apple. This 8 x 8 piece was fun to do. I wasn't sure about handling the paper bag, so I just looked for shapes of shadow and a few brighter edges to pull out. I just "smooshed" (a very technical term) the background and liked the effect, so I left it without further reworking. I liked that it gave it some interest and direction.

This painting is up for auction, starting today, for 7 days. You can click on the link below to view.


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Just One Red Tulip

Final of the series!  Did a bit of tinkering to get warm neutrals inside the tulip to "pop" the lightest areas.   I tried to keep this fairly simple to just let the flower speak.  I hope it speaks to you! 

A Pair of Tulips

This is the second painting in my Tulip series.  I was looking for a different composition in which I could use some interesting lighting.  I just happened to lay these down on my surface with the light on, and there it was!  I liked the sweeping angle and the interesting shadows thrown by the tulips.  The tulip colors vary slightly from my first attempt (previous post), but this series was also designed to explore "reds", so I felt more free to vary the color.  Let me know what you think!

Two Red Tulips

SOLD

Where does the time go?  I can't believe it's almost a month since my last post!  But Spring has finally arrived and I find myself enjoying my garden and the spring flowers.  Flowers have always been a love of mine and I could not resist painting some red tulips.  I do seem to have this "red" thing going for a while now.  I"ve been exploring different reds, different backgrounds and various red objects.  I haven't really painted a series before, but this is the first of three paintings of red tulips.  I'm sharing this one today, with the others to follow soon.

Website at last!

"Gilsland Farm" is one of the paintings featured on the first page of my new website--victoriaartandframe.com

  I've long wanted to have a web presence and my family has been both encouraging and instrumental in making this happen.  The artwork above was inspired by a trip to the Audubon Society in Portland, Maine, a favorite spot of my daughter, Stephanie.  The website itself was developed and launched by my daughter, Stacey.  Both my husband Moe and my son, Marc, have been a great support in my artistic endeavors.  I am fortunate to have this amazing group to call family.  I hope visitors to my blog will enjoy checking in on my new website and thanks for sharing in my excitement! 
www.victoriaartandframe.com

In the Spotlight

This is a piece I painted, and repainted, and repainted--trying to get the glow on the center apple and have the two side apples be supports to the center of interest without overpowering it.  I think I finally succeeded with that idea after a lot of looking and tweaking.  The center apple is also basically the same one I used for the watercolor in an earlier post, which I had done as preliminary work for this piece.  I still want to go back and do the solo apple in oiil and hopefully, I'll get to that.  I also find I like working in this long format for a change and hope to find more subjects that fit the space.